The Confuse and Conquer Maneuver (Glenn Livingston, Ph.D.) For more information on how to fix your food problem fast please visit www.fixyourfoodproblem.com Well, hey, it's the very good doctor Glenn Livingston with Never Binge Again, and I am here with Ali who is a very kind woman who's agreed to allow us to record her first session, so that you can all benefit from her observations and struggles and insights. Ali, how are you today? I'm good, Dr. Livingston. Thank you. Oh, please call me Glenn. For two reasons; one is I prefer it and the second is that actually in this context, I function more as a coach and an educator than a psychologist because a lot of what I say about cage the pig and all that is not necessarily best practices for my profession. So I'm going to share the screen so I can take notes as we go along. Okay. Ali, update me, tell me what your struggles have been. Okay. I've had struggles with my weight and overeating my whole life. And recently, my biggest struggles -- not recently, but maybe for the last two or three years, my biggest struggles are just -- I don't know if it's information overload, I don't know if it's just playing the mind games with myself, but I will literally start an eating plan in the morning, like, I love Whole30, I've done Whole30, I felt fabulous on it. I'll start
Whole30 in the morning, I'm all ready to go and then by 11:00, I'm starting to think to myself, "This isn't going to work." I'm going to eat so many carbs and I'm not going to lose weight fast enough, and I'm going to overdo it and I'm going to be stuck in place, and nothing is going to happen. So maybe I should do this other plan that it's less calories and it follows the same kind of principles, and I'm on that for like an hour and then I'd say, "Okay. Well, I guess this isn't really going to work. I guess I should do something else," and I ended up eating Twinkies. And it's just a constant vicious cycle, and I feel like a lot of times like I am never going to lose this weight. I mean, I've been 300 pounds and I've been 160 pounds, and it's always been a struggle with controlling what I eat. It's like one bite and I'm off and running, and it's just endless. Do you believe that if you were to follow one plan even if it were far less than perfect, but you were to stay on it, that should be better off than jumping from plan to plan? I do believe that. I do believe that if I stuck to something, whichever one, if I stuck to something, yes, I would see results, but I think part of my problem is I have this thought in my head that nothing is fast enough, like I need to lose all this weight by next Monday. When I did Whole30, which was one of my -- the best in my life, when I did that, I loss like 17 pounds in a month. I mean, I don't know where I'm getting the idea that it won't work because it did work. It's just this game I play with myself over and over again.
Okay. What you're describing is a classic case of the pig maneuver, which we call confuse and conquer. It's also called the grass is greener syndrome. Okay. Which says that this other diet over there is always better, so let's not stay in this any particular diet and let's keep you constantly confused about which one is going to work so that you're actually on no diet so that chaos can reign and we can just keep binging. Right. I know you understand this. I'm saying it for the benefit of the audience and also for the benefit of having it said out loud so we can work with it. The whole thing is really binge-motivated. The pig wants to keep you on a state of confusion. And the way that we deal with that is by saying that we're not going to allow that even if one diet is not perfect. So even if Whole30 is not perfect, if you believe that it's nutritionally complete and calorically sufficient, and close enough to work for you, then we're going to commit to that and start to dismiss all the squeals that say, "But it's got this flaw or it's that flaw or this flaw" because we know that there are even more flaws in a plan, which involve switching from diet to diet to diet. So we're going to give this a good shot for a month and see if it works, and dismiss anything else that says that we shouldn't do that as pig squeal. Does that make sense? Is that something you want to do?
It is something I want to do. I want to just focus on one plan for a month. In my mind, I think I need more than a month. I mean, I think more like 60 or 90 days is what I really need to get over a lot of these serious sugar issues, and I don't know if 30 days is even enough. So I feel like I need to commit to even a longer period of time, but yes, I feel like I realize myself and I bring myself to this place as feeling so overwhelmed. So yes, I would very much like to just dismiss everything else and say, "This is it. Forget about you, forget about you, forget about you." Even if I lose two pounds from now until -- because the number has seemed to be a big thing in my mind. I need to lose all this, all this now. I think that that's another thing I need to deal with it. It is what it is and as it comes off, it comes off and then I can't listen to that. This isn't fast enough. It's not good enough. I got to get rid of that. Well, 17 pounds a month is actually a little too fast. Right. I mean, well, I'm a big girl, so I mean, I weigh a little bit over 200 pounds, so a lot of it was probably water that just came off, but 17 pounds is a lot. If you lose weight too fast, you're going to stimulate your biological drive to hoard calories, tell your body that there's not enough nutrition available and so that when nutrition is available, it should be hoarded. Okay. Is Whole30 the plan that you would like to execute? Is that the one that you would like to consider committing to? We don't need to commit to it yet. I just want to understand.
There's actually two and that's part of my problem. There's the Whole30, which I feel -- like I said, when I did it, I felt very, very healthy, I felt very good, I felt very clearheaded. It was a wonderful plan. And then there's another plan that follows the same basic tenets, but it's like a much more lower calorie plan and it's faster results, and you're supposed to follow it for like eight to 12 weeks and then take a four-week break and then start up again. So, that's part of my problem is that the Whole30 is wonderful, I felt fantastic, but maybe it will be faster if I do this one instead. Ali, I've almost never had long-term results with people that had fast weight loss, almost never. People that binge eat and gone for a really fast weight loss, maybe one or two people, just so you know. So in my experience, I'd prefer a plan that goes more slowly and steadily. Right. I mean, and Whole30 is a very good nutritionally sound plan. I mean, the only thing with Whole30 that I think would be good is if when I meet my food plan to make some conditions because I do have a habit of always doing things. I really don't need to eat half of a watermelon tonight or I don't need to eat three pounds of cherries like one or two cups is sufficient. I feel like even within the Whole30, you need to put some guidelines of what you're going to do. So let's do that right now. So the food plan you like to follow is Whole30, but you would also like to add some restrictions. What are the restrictions you want to add?
What I would like to add is just, which is within the planned guidelines to make sure that I include vegetables with almost every meal at least two out of three meals and to not overdose on fruit, which is a problem with me because once I cut the processed sugars, all of a sudden I'm eating a very large quantities of fruit and in some ways to fit some of the purpose of it. So I always and at least one serving of vegetables with that least. At least two out of my three meals. At least two meals per day, and how would you limit the fruit? How would you describe your elimination on the fruit? Up to three servings of fruit a day, a serving being a normal serving one apple, a cup of watermelon, like -- and again, a normal serving of fruit, maybe three servings of fruit a day, a peach or an apple, two cups of cherries or something like that. Will your pig confuse the definition of a serving or do you really know what that is? Right. Like I'm saying like one apple, not two apples. One cup of watermelon or two cups of cherries. It has to be a little bit more specific so that I can't get away with sitting down with an enormous bowl of whatever. So is one piece of fruit or one cup of whatever kind of cherries, whatever kind of other fruit. Basically, a serving is one piece or one cup.
Right. Right. Okay. Serving is one piece or one cup of fruit. Okay. So what I have is Whole30, I'll always eat at least one serving of vegetables with at least two meals of the day. I'll never eat more than three servings of fruit per day where the serving being one piece or one cup of fruit. Right. Do you need to include any other restrictions onto Whole30 to make yourself confident in this plan to keep yourself out of trouble? I'm very comfortable with the protein. I'm comfortable with the fat allowances that they want you to eat a good serving of fat with each meal. I'm comfortable with all those things, so that's not an issue. One thing I have an extremely big problem with and it's something that I always derail no matter what I do is I have a problem with coffee. I drink like these iced coffees and I put like cream and sugar in them, and I can drink two or three of them a day. It's like the one thing that seems to always derail me is I can't have my coffee. When I was on Whole30, I was getting coffee and putting coconut milk and like half a banana, I'm putting it in the blender just so I would have something and that was okay and it works for me. But the coffee is one thing that I find that I have a really hard time letting go off, and I don't know if it's a physical thing or if coffee is almost a comfort for me with dealing with stress, so like I feel like it's just like something I have to have and I really struggle with that. What role would you like coffee to play in your life?
I would like to have it occasionally. I would like to have coffee every now and then, like maybe on the weekends or every other day. I mean, I don't really think it's good for my adrenal to drink this much coffee where my sleep cycle gets messed up and I think I overdo it. I don't think it's healthy for me to drink as much as I do, and I don't want to be reliant on it. I feel reliant on coffee and it's just another substance. So Ali, be more specific. You like to have it every other day, like have how much every other day, what would be healthy? Like if I had one, I usually go to like Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks and I'll get like an iced cold brewed coffee and even if I had one of those like every other day, that would be okay, but on the Whole30, you can't have any kind of sugar or sweetener, which brings me back to I would have to blend it here at my house, which is fine which I've done before and I can deal with that. But I feel deprived when I don't have my coffee, that's like a mental thing. I don't know. The coffee is a big thing for me. Ali, if you never have more than one cup of coffee every other calendar day, would that be healthy? If I had one coffee every other day or one coffee every single day? Well, you were saying every other day. Right. If I have one coffee every other day, I think that will be fine. I think it will break my dependence on it because it wouldn't be something like that I will have to have.
Okay. So, you've never have more than one cup of coffee every other calendar day. Right. And you never eat more than three servings of fruit a day and a serving is one piece or one cup of fruit, and you have one serving of vegetables with at least two meals of your day and otherwise you do Whole30. If you were to follow that plan for 90 days, could your pig get you in trouble in any other way? Just the special occasion thing, following that exact plan, the only other thing that I could see the pig causing trouble with would be potatoes because it sounds so silly when I say it out loud, but like I said, I tend to always view things. Like sweet potatoes, I'm fine with, but regular potatoes, which they actually allowed on the Whole30 like a year ago, they changed the rules and they allow it. Regular potatoes, I mean, I can eat like a pan of potatoes. I mean, that's not healthy. That's not in the spirit of what I'm trying to do. So yes, potatoes could get me in trouble. How would you like your regular potatoes, you want to avoid them entirely or do you want to include them in some conditional way? Maybe on the weekends, maybe like once a week I can have a serving of potatoes like on Saturdays or Sundays. So never eat potatoes on a weekday again and I will never eat more than one potato per day? Yeah, that sounds good, that sounds reasonable.
Okay. So I'll never eat potatoes on a weekday again, I'll never eat more than one potato per calendar day again. Does that sound right? Yeah, that sounds right. So any other way that your pig could get you in trouble if we followed this plan? No, because I'm taking care of the big problems that I encountered on the plan where just the fruits and the potatoes and my coffee, those are the big issues for me. Everything else was fine. Okay. So Ali, I want you put your pig aside for the moment and I want you to imagine that it's 90 days from now and you've actually done this. As a matter of fact, you've done it perfectly even though your pig says that's not possible and this isn't the right plan, and you're not going to lose weight fast enough and you better jump to another one. I want you to imagine you actually did it and it's 90 days from now. Can you tell me what's different in your life? My gosh, I feel like crying right now just thinking about that, like I would feel incredibly more healthy, I have to go and feel much more clearheaded, which I find once I get a lot of the junk out, I'm thinking clear, my moods are more stable and less irritable, like I have more energy. I think my outlook would just be so much more positive, my clothes would be fitting better. I think I would be much, much happier.
So the first thing you said was you'd be a lot healthier. What specifically would be healthier? Fortunately, even at the weight I'm at, I don't have any, knock wood, like chronic health issues, but I'm sluggish. I don't have a whole lot of energy I think that like my sugar because I eat so much sugar. I think my blood sugar dips and I get irritable, and my sleep cycle is very off sometimes like I'll fall asleep at 9:00 and wake up at 11, and then I'm up until three in the morning and then I fall back to sleep, and I got to get up at seven with the kids, and it's not a healthy cycle. So I think that those things would definitely improve and I think that a lot of it would be just like my emotional health I think would improve like my feeling of wellbeing and my moods would probably level out more because sometimes I eat this junk food. I mean, I won't eat a meal all day and all I'm eating is cupcakes and garbage, and then I'm irritable and I snap the kids, and I'm in a bad mood or I feel depressed or low about it. I think all that would even out after 90 days, so yeah. If it was all evened out and you weren't snapping in the kids, and you were sleeping better and your blood sugar is more even, what would change in your life as a result? I think my relationships with my kids and I'm going to say my husband because I don't know if that's going to get me any better, but maybe even him, I don't know. And my relationship with myself, like I think that because this is really affecting me with how I feel about myself, you can't do it, you can't do it. And also, my motivation because I have a lot of ideas about things I want to do and I'm not doing them because I just don't like have the energy or I don't have the motivation to do them.
And I notice that when I was on the Whole30 previously, I did feel much better and I was more motivated to do stuff. What kinds of things? Well, physical things like being more active with the kids and the last time I was on Whole30, I had started this Facebook page for children with the -- like for parents, the children with like special needs and we got a really big response from it and it was going so well. And then, once I went on Whole30, I started feeling nosey and I turned it over to somebody else because I didn't want to do it anymore. But it all began once I started to feel better and then I let it all go because I just started to get back into just not having that energy and motivation to do it, things like that. So you'd feel a lot more confident about yourself, you'd be doing some pro-social things in the world and helping these parents, and you said your clothes would fit better. Are there a particular dress or a pair of jeans or something that you're looking forward to wearing? Yeah, this skirt I have not been able to fit into for my closet. I probably have like five different sizes, like over the last I would say 10 years, I probably have a range of sizes that I have grown into and grown out of, but there's a particular skirt that -- and it will be a while before I'd be able to get into it, but I would be absolutely thrilled to get into it. What color is it? It's black.
Black skirt, and when did you get it? I've got it from about nine years ago and I wore it, and I wore it for some special events that I remember well, and I felt really good in it and so I would like to wear that again. Very nice. Is there anything else that would be different in 90 days if you follow this plan? Well, another thing too that is important to me is I think I will be feeding my kids better. I think that because I don't eat as well as I could, I don't think I'm feeding them as well as I can, and I would like to change that, which is a big motivator for me especially with my daughter. She date now. I have a 22-year-old and she has struggled with her weight in her entire life, and I felt pretty guilty about that. And now I have an eightyear-old and she doesn't struggle, but I would hate for that to start happening at some point. So you can be a better role model and set her up for success. Absolutely. Absolutely, and offer her better choices because sometimes we're eating on the fly and sometimes we're eating fast food or we're eating out and it's just not the best thing for her either. It makes a lot of sense. Anything else? No, I think I would just feel better and more confident and happier, and more productive overall.
Okay. Well, why don't we give your pig a chance then? So you have this food plan that it sounds like you feel excited about. We know that we want to commit to it for 90 days no matter what even if something else seems better. We know all these good things would happen if we stayed on it for 90 days on this particular plan -- Whole30 with these extra modifications. Now, what does your pig say that you can't do this shit and do this, won't do this? I can't? I won't be able to survive 90 days without a cupcake, cannoli, coffee. How can I give all that up? I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not going to be able to change for the kids. I'm not going to lose fast enough. I'm probably going to lose five pounds anyways, so what's the big deal if I put myself to all this stuff for nothing, and I'd use my stress release that I use food for where as soon as I get stressed, I run into the kitchen to something what am I going to do then. And then, I lose the comfort of it, I'll miss the taste of it, what if we have a special occasion, I'm not going to be able to have a glass of wine, I'm not going to be able to eat the cake, I'll feel deprived and just failed that everything else already, why would this be any different. I have a bad sense of that. Is there anything else your pig has to say? Just that like I basically can't do it. Okay. Well, let's go through this one by one and what I want you to do is jump back up into your higher self and try to give me a better answer, try to tell me what's the truth is. So when the pig says you
won't be able to survive 90 days without a cupcake, cannoli or coffee, you just can't give it up, what's a better answer for that? Well, obviously, I can survive. I mean, I've done harder things in life, so obviously I'm not going to be like the wicked witch and turn into a pile of ash if I don't get a cupcake. What were the harder things you've done in life? I survived a lot as a kid, which was tough and then I also raised a child by myself, which was tough and I went through some serious losses, which was tough. I managed to make more of a success of myself than a lot of other people in my family with a lot of challenges, which was good. You went through a lot. There were ups and downs, but I mean, I always persevere. I'm a survivor. I always persevere. So you do what you have to do and that's it, you just keep going. There's no doctor that says that if you don't have cupcakes, cannoli and coffee, you're going to die of malnutrition, right? Maybe we could find one. Yeah, you could, but yeah, if you'll look through hard enough. Get a doctor's note from someone that says you have to have this to survive, you could. Yeah, right, be a note like I could submit it to my pig and you know.
Make your pig really happy, yeah. Yeah, really. Well, I'll get him dancing. No, there's no absolutely no reason that I would not physically be able to survive and there's no reason why I wouldn't be able to mentally survive it. I mean, I could test that out. Yeah. I don't know any psychologist that would say that you have to have cupcakes, cannoli and coffee also. Maybe you should start and understand, you'd be probably be the groundbreaker and then -- I could make a lot of money. I could. What if when the pig says you won't be able to change for the kids? I won't be able to get my daughter to meet the changes because she's missed mac and cheese, and even though she's perfectly healthy weighed and then everything is fine, but everything she eats is mac and cheese, grilled cheese. She's not a particularly healthy eater and I know it's going to be a struggle to turn her around. But then again, something I had thought of recently when I was thinking about this with her is that I can't control what she eats. I can't control -- could put in front of her, I can't put the food in her mouth, I can't control what she eats, but I can control what I offer her because she is only eight, she doesn't have a credit card, she doesn't have a car, she doesn't have an ATM that she can go and get money, and buy herself the cupcakes or mac and cheese. I can control what I offer her and if she chooses not to eat it, then that's her choice, right?
Yeah. Kids do about 20% of what their parents say and 80% of what their parents do. And what I found is that kids need to see their parents make the changes themselves for a year or two before they really come around and all the things that you're saying is true. Thank God your daughter doesn't have a credit card and an ATM. Thank God. She has an attitude. Well, yeah, from New York, what are you going to do? And that's she got from me. Eight-year-old from New York, you can't do any better. Right. Okay. So when the pig says you're not going to lose weight fast enough, so what's the point of putting this through all this effort for nothing, what's a better answer for that? I don't know. I mean, it is what it is. I'll lose at the pace I lose and eventually I'll get there, but I'm not happy with that. I'm not happy with that answer. I understand. I work with a guy who started at 500 pounds and he had tried so many times. He lost 100 pounds and he gained it. He lost 100 pounds and he gained it. And finally he just said, "I'm going to set up a plan so that I'm not really that hungry that I could stay on forever and I'm just going to lose five pounds a month," and that's how he did it, like
month after month after month after month. He just took five pounds off and he felt more and more, and more secure and he said, "You know, I just got to do my time. I did my time putting the weight on. I got to do my time putting the weight off and it's just what it was." I wish I had a faster way that people could take it off and keep it off, and I know people pay all kinds of money for that, but I just haven 't seen it. I haven't seen people maintain it when they do that. This has been a lifelong thing with me. I didn't gain this all in the last six months. When I say lifelong, since I was maybe like five or six years old. I mean, that's when we started with the whole weight thing and well, I went through periods where I was thinner, periods when I was heavier. I mean, I got up to like 300 pounds. I had gastric bypass surgery in 2000. I got down to like 165 and then there's a whole bunch of pregnancy and fertility things, and then there were some losses and it just got really crazy, and then up and down the weight went. Then my mother passed away when she was sick. She was sick in the hospital for two months. I put on 20 pounds in two months and I haven't lost any of that. So, that's the only time the weight came on really, really fast was when my mom died. Sorry about that. Is there any doctor that's telling you that you have to lose really quickly because you're in an emergency situation? No. There's no emergency. I mean, there is one doctor I have who encourages me to lose weight for my health. I had a physical and I have no not good as far as I know major medical problems. I'm fairly healthy as far as I know.
I would say like five to seven pounds a month. Maybe the first month is going to come off a little faster because of the bloat and the water. So what is a better answer? So you spent a lifetime putting this on, it's going to -- you'd have to do your time to take it off. I think we just have to tell the pig has going to have to do with time. We're not putting ourselves for all this effort for nothing, we're putting ourselves for all this effort so we can get thin and stay thin. Another thing too is that even if I didn't lose one pound, I would be healthier because I would stop eating all these processed foods and I would stop putting my blood sugar through the constant pounding that it takes with the fast all day until 3:00. And then, here, let's eat three cupcakes and then two coffees, and dinner time rolls around and I have a cheese sandwich, and then I start eating at 11:00 at night until two in the morning. I mean, that is not healthy either. So even if I lose nothing at all, I would be doing myself a service to put nutritional food into my body and stop the process garbage that I'm eating, you know. And the pig says you're going to lose your only stress relief mechanism, what's a better answer for that? Suck it up and find some other way to deal with your stress. That's a tough one because I do find myself turning to food very often to deal with stress. I have different stresses in my life and I find when I get stressed, and the first thing I'm thinking about is junk food, so finding some other means of stress relief other than turn into food. Ali, what I tell people about that is that if you have six problems and then you binge, then you have seven problems.
That's true. It's not really a stress relief mechanism and everything I tell them is that they're not really just eating for comfort. The things that they're eating are actually getting them high with food. Mm-hmm. I completely agree with you 100%. I totally agree with you. see that. And the reason that's important is that people don't want to think of themselves getting high with food. They don't want to think of themselves like a drug addict. They want to think that they're comforting themselves. It's not really true. You're anesthetizing yourself, but you're also getting high, also seeking the high. Right. It's like instead of drinking wine, instead of taking some morphine or a Xanax or whatever, I'm eating, right? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. It's the substance that's getting me high and knocking me out somehow. When the pig says you need something different in special occasions, do you? Do you want to make a special rule for special occasions? No, you can't on Whole30. I mean, unless I make my own rules and say, yeah, I mean, the 90 days if I have a birthday party or a family event and there are seven desert, and I want to have one desert, yes, I
will. That doesn't go with Whole30, but then again, it will be easy for me to follow if I do something like that. So say specifically what would that be again. If I have a family event like I'm not talking about tomorrow, but tomorrow I have a family barbecue, so if I have a family barbecue and they were serving dessert and they have one dessert or one glass of wine with dinner or yeah, like one dessert or one glass of wine. So on special occasions, what constitutes a special occasion? I guess when one or two people get together. How often can that happen? I can make it happen everyday. I have to accomplish health and fitness goals with this in plan. No. I mean, like if we're in birthday celebration, an engagement party, anniversary, things of that nature. Formal celebrations. Mm-hmm. Formal celebrations. Formal celebrations and events, I may have one dessert and one glass of wine. So that's your exception. Right.
And how do you want to allow this to happen, once a month, once a week, what kind of frequency cap do you want to put on it to be safe? Well, I don't have special occasions every week or every month, maybe once a month. Okay. So on formal celebrations and events, no more than once per calendar month and I have one dessert and one glass of wine. Right. Okay. When the pig says you'll feel too deprived, what's a better answer for that? This is actually, say, from you because I was listening to some of your podcast and meeting, and what you said about the flipside of what you're actually depriving yourself off and it made a whole lot of sense to me. I'm deprived of myself. I'm feeling good about myself. I'm deprived of myself of my health and I'm deprived of my kids if -- I would say maybe a more balanced mom because I get irritable and snappy, and then that's not fair to them. So really keeping it going is a much bigger deprivation than having to skip the chocolate cake. Yeah, you're depriving yourself of being a better role model and having a better relationship with yourself, and wearing that little black skirt that you want to wear and helping the parents with special need kids, and being more active with the kids. And just certain situations like we go out to an amusement park and I have to wonder about -- well, I'm not that big, but still I'm going to have
to wonder about, "How am I going to feel in the seat to that ride or just going shopping, clothes shopping and having to pass up like whole racks of clothes, like yeah, I know none of those will fit me." I mean, situations like that. I mean, those still feel very good. That's a deprivation right there that like I'll say it to myself, "Yeah, I won't fit into a 14 because now I wear 16, 18, so all those are off the table." That's a deprivation right there that I care by the clothes I want to buy and even like that momentary thought of how am I going to feel, how am I going fit? I mean, am I going to fit okay, is it going to be tight? My kid gets in the car with me. Because that happened, I mean, I fit and my son sat next to me and he said, but I had that moment of hesitation before I sat down like, "Oh, is this going to be too tight? Is the seatbelt going to fit? I mean, we're going to be okay in here." And your pig is depriving you of that confidence. Right, confidence, exactly. Depriving me of the confidence just to say, "Oh, yeah, you look great. Let's hop on and go." When your pig says that, "You've failed at everything else already, why would this be any different," what's a good answer to that? The answer to that is just I think part of it is recognition of what's actually going on because that's one thing with this program that's just come up. It's just some of the things that you say or you write or let you know you bring to light. I'm like, I had no idea that that was related to this and I guess just bringing a light and trying a light on things, and being able to see things as they are and also just set in the bottom line rules of what will and will not happen, and taking the ambivalence out of it. That's part of it too with me because it's all the ambivalence like
with the grass is always green thing. Okay, well, maybe this and maybe that, maybe the other thing, maybe just taking it off the table and saying, "Come what may. We're going to stick with this one thing and ride it out." Yeah. The research shows that people that keep getting up and trying something new to lose weight eventually figure it out and there's no reason just because a boat has been traveling for miles in one direction and the wake behind them extends as far as you can see in one direction. There's no reason that the captain can't turn the wheel if they want to. The past does not dictate the future. Right. That sounds like Dr. George Spencer, you create your new future everyday, you could live in your past or you -- And Spencer said we can remake ourselves everyday, too. Exactly. Right. Mm-hmm. I think that's part of it. Can I ask you a tough question, Ali, when we have a couple minutes left? Sure. I'm good, yeah. How confident are you that you're never going to binge again? I feel more confident. I will say I feel 100% but I feel more steady about it than I felt before. That's good to hear. What percentage would you give it?
I don't feel 100% though, but I do feel much better like more possible. I want to teach you about how this game is played. The reason I asked that question and keep pushing people's aim towards 100% is to see if the pig is any other thing up its sleeve. It sounds like it doesn't at the moment, but there's a trap that the pig puts us in, which says, "You can't be 100% confident until you feel 100% confident." And I know it sounds like that's true but it's not. Because while we can't get rid of the pig, we can't get rid of our brainstem, we can't get rid of our whole history of binging, and so it's always there and it's always kind of got that pain in the neck presence, what we can do is 100% commit to separate from the pig. So we can say, "I'm 100% confident, but my pig has other ideas." Seeing what that does is it designs all of the data and insecurity of the pig and it installs this algorithm in your head, which continually pushes the doubt and insecurity to the pig, and that's what give you more and more confident is your commitment to separate from the pig. You should not be frightened if you have an impulse or a craving. It's a normal part of the process because we can't get rid of your lizard brain, but you can always translate, "I'm afraid that I might binge until the pig really, really wants to binge." You can say, "I'm 100% confident and the pig has other ideas." Because by definition, the way this game is played, the desire to binge is the pig's desire, so all anxiety, all insecurity belongs to the pig also. And then, it will help you tremendously if you're willing to make that commitment. Does that make sense?
Yeah, what you're saying about all those negative feelings, the anxiety and all that belonging to the pig and that part of myself and not me, that makes sense. So like the dichotomy that it's -- because sometimes -- and I hear the voice in my head telling me, "Well, yeah, you'll start tomorrow, we're trying." So that's not really me. That's the pig, the lizard brain of the situation. That's not really me. The me that has goals and motivation, that's them trying to get the away, right? Yeah. That's exactly right. So I have to be able to recognize that when that voice comes up, that's not really me, that's them. It sounds so weird when I say it, but that's not the me that wants to move forward. That's the me that's stuck in the "I want, I want." It's your destructive self and you're choosing to separate from it. Right. Yeah. Well, so, how confident are you that you're never going to binge again? I think if I can recognize that, I won't. Would you be willing to say you're 100% confident even though your pig has other ideas? Yeah. Do you want to say that out loud now for your own benefit?
I'm 100% confident I won't binge again, yeah, mm-hmm. Okay. I'm sorry to be so obnoxious about it, but it's really important. For more information on how to fix your food problem fast please visit www.fixyourfoodproblem.com Psy Tech Inc. All Rights Reserved